It sounded too good to be true. A room full of all the champagne you could drink. When I showed up, I started to wonder if maybe the Independent Champagne and Sparkling Wine Invitational was a fantasy. No signs. Most parking lots closed. Ended up in the Convention center near the room high up in the alphabet. All the signs said said “Smart Solutions for a Changing World.” Pretty sure that’s not for the sparkling wine event.

10:30

Found it. The seminar has a small crowd. Lots of good wine going undrunk this morning.

10:40

Met Alice Feiring (www.alicefeiring.com), who have covered wine for The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle and many other big publications. She is charming and down to earth. Perhaps the wine world isn’t as off-putting as some claim.

Try to sit at the same table as a woman with an unplaceable accent. She made it clear that she didn’t want me typing nearby. Maybe the wine world is a little intimidating. Ok, moving across the room.

10:45

Four glasses are set out at each place. A little bit of liquid in the bottom. Water? No. I’m told each glass was rinsed with champagne. I’m sending that cleaning tip to Hints from Heloise.

10:56

“Tour de monde” gets started, a seminar looking at sparkling wines from beyond the Champagne region. We’ll be tasting sparkling wines from both Europe and the New World. The seminar is lead by Alice and Lisa Granik, m.w. (master of wine).

We’re starting with cava, which used to be called champagne until the Spanish joined the European Union and the French stomped their feet and said “non.” It is, they said, the typical second choice when you can’t have champagne.

The climate in Catalan makes a wine that’s “earthier,” which is the polite term for “rubbery.” It’s like when we talk about “road tar” with South African wines, Alice said.

We’re tasting a Raventos I Blanc from 2006. A nice dry sip to start the morning.

Alice: Too often chardonnay grapes are used for cava. She thinks that the climate is too hot for that grape in Spain. She prefers the traditional varietals for cavas.

10:55

Learning a lot, but it would be great to have a handout with info about the wines and the grape varietals in each of them.

10:56

Moving on to the New World. We have a Catena Siesta extra brut from Argentina. A blend of chardonnay and pinot noir. Lots of fruit on the nose. Dry taste with a hint of honey. Alice smells a mintyness and a little green eucaliptis. Only a year on lees.

When Mitterand came to power, Lisa says, a lot of growers were concerned that he would nationalize the wine industry. They started shopping in the New World, U.S. and South America, for investments. There was no culture of sparkling wine in Argentina. It was created by the French in this period.

The small crowds are nice at the seminar. The audience and the speakers are having a friendly conversation about sparkling wine.

11:04

Lisa: When you begin a new wine culture in a country, they typically start with sweets and fortified. It’s only later that countries tend to move into drier wines.

11:05

Third wine: a crement blanc de blancs from Parigot in Bourgogne. It spends 18 months on lees.

Lisa: More riper apple fruit rather than the citrus that we normally associate with champagne.

The mousee, or foam, of a sparkling wine depends on the fertility of the soil, Lisa says. California has more fertile soil than the chalk in Champagne, so you get more fizz in their sparkling wines.

Alice: A cremant is great for weddings when people don’t want to spring for champagne.

Lisa: More purity of fruity with strawberry and raspberry character, but not that element of chalk that you get with rosé champagne.

11:14

Lisa: None of these non-Champagne wines have the “spine” of a good champagne. She says, “They are light and fresh. They are delicate. They are fun. But they lack a certain sense of gravitas that one sees in champagne.”

11:19

Here comes Italy. The first wine is a 2008 Passerina burt made in the traditional method. It’s a spumante.

It’s fresh and light.

Lisa: “Lots of spice. It’s extremely ripe. The mousse is pretty and gentle.” When judging the sparkling wine at the Grand Tasting, think about how “fine or rustic” the mousse is.

Alice: “I’m getting a lot of Nestle cocoa and powdered sugar. Am I alone on this? Because I often am.”

Lisa: “It’s the acidity that drive the impression of whatever minerality that there is. The higher the acidity, the greater the impression of minerality, to the degree that there was minerality in that particular terroir.”

11:24

Number two from Italy: prosecco from Fantinel.

Lisa: “It’s frothy but there is not a lot going on. It’s fun. It’s intended to be drunk young and not really thought about. In fact, we’re already spending too much time on it.”

Prosecco is the fun time guy of the sparkling wine world, it seems. But you don’t get much depth.Procecoo is the drinking pal that your wife won’t you let you hang out with after marriage.

11:27

Moving on to the southwest of France. This is a Mauzac. It’s an unusual wine that uses mosac vert and mosac blanc, a family of grapes.

Odd wine that is placed into canvas bags after its fermented in cement tank. Someone in the audience actually worked at the vineyard. She explains the process. The canvas, she says, look like a nun’s habit. I still have no idea how it works.

Time to taste. I’m get skunk on the nose, which I can’t get past.

11:41

We’re finishing with the third and final flight.

Our one champagne starts this the flight. It’s a 1999 vintage Alfred Gratien. She meant to bring a non-vintage, but she brought a vintage by mistake. Lucky for us.

Lisa: This wine is fermented in old barrel. You don’t get wood, but instead a toasty, creamy texture. Lots of spice. Lots going on. Smooth transition from each flavor.

11:44

Next wine, a 2007 Argyle rosé from Oregon. This is the only producer in Oregon focused on sparkling wine.

Lisa: She taste “raspberry Lifesavers with a hint of Jolly Rancher.” I think she means that in the best possible way, since she also calls it “delightful.”

Lisa: Think about “how long does that wine talk to you.” That’s a way to think about quality.

11:47

The last wine is Triebaumer from Austria, a sweet rosé

Lisa: “I have not heard of this wine.”

Alice: “Should we Google it?” She grabs her iPhone.

11:54

About tasting all these sparkling wines that aren’t champagne, an audience member says, “It makes me you love champagne for the right reason. I’m biased, though.”

Lisa: Champagne has a longer life. A lot of these non-Champagne sparklers we tasted wines will be dead soon.

The general consensus in the room is that the world has many interesting sparkling wines, but everyone there would rather drink the real thing from champagne.

Check back later in the afternoon at www.nola.com/drink for notes from the grand tasting.